The earliest Pollak ancestor Faith Bueltmann Stern mentions is Eduard Pollak (1817-7 Aug 1888). His wife was Katharina Ratzersdorfer (1819-8 Apr 1891). The record of his death describes him as a business manager from Pressburg, Hungary. Sometime before 1848, Eduard and Katharina moved to Vienna, where they had five children: Moritz, Wilhelm, Ignaz, Heinrich, and Flora. In Vienna, Eduard was a stockbroker or bank agent on the Vienna Bourse. He had many connections with the elite and the theater world in Vienna, largely through his profession. According to his son Heinrich, Eduard had a regular afternoon card party with some of these connections. According to grandson Henry Stern, Eduard bought on the margin and was very well-to-do, but stingy. After a meal, the silver was immediately put away. He remained thin all his life, wore a smoking jacket or morning coat for thirty years. He lost everything when the stock market crashed in 1873, but he still had enough. Eduard died 7 Aug 1888 in Vienna and is buried in the Central cemetery: Tor 1, Group 8, Row 14, Grave 68. Katharina died in 8 Apr 1891 in Vienna and is also buried in the Central cemetery Tor l, Group 19, Row 4, Grave 25. At the time of her death she was living in Hernals at Gürtelstrasse 7. She is described as a Stockbroker’s widow from Pressburg, Hungary. Eduard’s profession is given in his son Heinrich’s autobiography, Bis ins Burgtheater.
Notes About the Book
- 1 online resource (23 unnumbered pages): illustrations
Surnames
Birnbaum, Jagendorf, Klein, Mathieu, Peeters, Perry, Polac, Pollak, Ratzersdorfer, Schmittlein, Schütz, Stern, and Swoboda.
Source
Stern, Faith Bueltmann, The Pollak Family of Pressburg, Hungary (Bratislava, Slovakia) and Vienna, Austria, Takoma Park, MD: Faith Bueltmann Stern, 2020.